


In sleep and in dreams you are mine

by lilacsupreme



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: F/F, descriptive fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 14:15:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30056742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsupreme/pseuds/lilacsupreme
Summary: Disclaimer: I do not own these characters :)
Relationships: Wilhemina Venable/Original Female Character(s), Wilhemina Venable/You, wilhemina venable/reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	In sleep and in dreams you are mine

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own these characters :)

Wilhemina thought that her lack of readiness when she woke in the morning constituted as a sign of weakness that someone could pick apart and use against her. She hated how she’d look in the mirror and not see herself, the collected, stoic warrior in her perfect lilac armour. Without it, she was like a cat with an exposed belly in the face of a predator, the most vulnerable part bared and accessible and seen. The real her. The her she hated.

You didn’t think Wilhemina was weak in the mornings. In fact, you’d found yourself rising before she did most mornings, out of obligatory habit. It had started as one early morning when work had called you in, and since had blossomed into a necessary part of your day.

Minutes before the first cracks of dawn you’d stir silently, the room still (describe no light) and you’d wait for your eyes to adjust until you could make out the crack in the ceiling. The world without colour, when Wilhemina’s hair hadn’t yet been blessed by the flames of the sun and remained grey. You’d reach out a cautious hand, still tingly from where you’d been laying on it, and stroke the hair which had fallen to frame her face, masking her eyes from your avid gaze. It was the same performance every morning, perfected by practise until you found yourself dancing to the drum of her heartbeat without even thinking.

You allowed yourself to watch her.

You’d never tell her this of course. She’d probably think it a waste of your time, you could be doing so many other things of more practical value than to lay on your side and watch the rhythmic rise and fall, the expanse of her chest, hear the slight rasping edge of a snore to her breathing.

Not to mention that she’d probably make a sharp quip about it being creepy, watching someone sleep when they were so unaware. So vulnerable. It all came down to vulnerability with Mina, the thing she loathed more than anything was to allow others to think that she may be capable of such a human emotion.

Fear.

You longed to show her that fear was good, fear meant that you cared. Wilhemina cared so deeply, so vividly for you that it was as if it had been carved into the very marble that she was. Set in stone and etched to infinity that she would protect you. You sometimes worried the fear of her hurting you was holding her back from loving truly. Openly and without doubt.

By now you’d managed to commit every part of her in the mornings to your memory, every dip and blemish on her pale skin you knew like your own. She was an extension of you now.

You wondered if she would look at you the same way when slept found you first at night, or when your head would nod to her shoulder in the middle of a movie. Did she know the way your exposed skin prickled up with goosebumps in the wake of a lazily trailed finger like you did hers? Did she see how your eyelashes would flutter in the midst of a dream, and would she wonder what you were dreaming of?

When you’d watch her, Mina would often reach out a palm towards you, even in sleep she would search for your warmth, your shelter. Fingers grazing over ribs to find the dip of your waist to pull you closer.

For a person who disliked any form of PDA, from herself or otherwise, Wilhemina was surprisingly reactive to touch, always searching for contact. It seemed to ground her. You never complained, neither did you bring it up in conversation, just happy to let her habit be and enjoy the affection. A hand on your thigh or at the swell of a hip bone, she could always be found close to you, drawing comfort from your presence when at Kinero’s dinners or events.

***

She’d often shift in her sleep, accustomed to moving so her back wouldn’t seize when she stirred, like the unoiled cogs in the working parts of a machine. It was something she would do throughout the day, never sitting too long or moving the weight from foot to foot when she stood. A routine she stuck to even in unconsciousness.

When dawn would break, and the time for darkness would ebb slowly away with each inch the sun rose, you’d shuffle closer to your girlfriend. Too eager and too impatient to see her face anew without the blanket that the night hung over her.

The way the sunlight would peek through the window, broken only by the sheer curtains that your girlfriend had insisted on. The warmth would flow as the sun rose over buildings, creeping like ivy up the walls of an abandoned house, over the floor and eventually washing over her face, revitalising the flames of her hair which were now tucked safely behind an ear.

You always tried to resist the smile that forced its way onto your lips at the pink of Mina’s cheeks, the faded brown of the freckles that littered the canvas of her skin so lightly you often thought they’d disappear. It was a detail so small that it shouldn’t mean so much that each morning she was gifted back to you in colour. But her freckles didn’t exist in grey.

A chorus of birds mocked her calm outside the window, threatening the ripple the still water with bubbles of life, the breath of a new day when all you wanted to do was to watch her.

You could always tell when she was about to wake up, her little tells alerting you far before her eyes would peek from behind thick lashes. She’d bring an arm up to her face, knuckles pushing against her nose as if trying to sate an insistent itch. The bridge of her nose would always wrinkle in protest and you wished to reach out and smooth them down with a gentle brush of a thumb.

Maybe she’d let out a small noise, a hum from the base of her throat as she tried to cling to sleep like a stubborn child. Another thing you’d never tell her, she’d only think you were poking fun at her instead of your actual intention of showing you loved her by knowing her. You didn’t want her defences up, you didn’t want to goad the bear with a stick until one of them snapped.

Wilhemina wasn’t a bear. She’d just been hurt. Not knowing true kindness until you, there was always an ulterior motive behind affection. The gifted food had always been laced with poison, and she’d just become accustomed to checking.

And when her eyes would flicker open to meet yours, her pupils waning in an involuntary reaction to the light of the room compared to the grey of behind her eyes. It was now that you could see the flecks of light brown in the pools of her dark iris’, chocolate melted in the sun.

You used to think her gaze was too intense, you could never fully meet it, and in that never fully see the depth of emotion they conveyed. Now they were inviting, you could loose yourself in the expanse of them. Loose seconds, minutes, hours at their mercy. Her eyes were timeless, aging like wine in the damp of a cellar. You wondered if anyone else held the stars in their eyes like she did.

She’d whisper to you, voice thick with sleep and knuckles reaching out again to brush against your skin this time, a tender smile pulling at her lips as she caught you watching her. Perhaps she’d indulge you with a kiss, deep and slow, making you edge closer and slip a leg between her own. You always wanted to take it further, your impatience the stark opposite of hers.

It wasn’t the weekend. A kiss would have to suffice.

When the alarm finally blared, it shattered the silence inconsiderately and pulled your Wilhemina from your grasp. Unlike you, she had no time to waste in the morning on childish frivolities. She’d rise and you’d lie back and listen to her movements, the telling thrum of her cane accompanying the shuffle of bare feet on wood. A quick peck to the cool of your forehead had you humming in response, before she was gone again.

The intrusive blare of the bathroom light against the white tile would always catch the back of your eyes through the open door and your eyelids. The gentle splash of water against ceramic and the sporadic clicks of the lotions and toothpaste she used. Hearing the mere sound alone was enough to have you in her embrace, breathing deep though her nose the lavender in the valley of her collarbones.

Blinking away the thought, you watched her shadow in the doorframe, and how you could see her face in the reflection if you shuffled over to Mina’s side of the bed, propping yourself against plush pillows. She’d feel your gaze on the back of her head, or maybe she expected it by now, eyes lifting to find yours in the mirror. A smile against the toothbrush between her teeth.

Sometimes she’d even sing. You’d drawn it out of her one night early in your relationship, a song she’d been lulled to sleep with as a child. She would stand at the sink and the melody would slip from her lips, voice raspy from the disuse of the night but still endlessly soft. She sang because she could. There was no one telling her of the occasional slip of her pitch, or wrong word.

Because with you Wilhemina didn’t need to array herself in armour anymore; perfection wasn’t an expectation. She didn’t need to have a finger ready on the trigger on a gun, didn’t need to hold the flicker of a flame to the short fuse of her explosive temper. She didn’t need to grip the hilt of the sharp blade of her tongue.

Wilhemina didn’t anticipate the danger she’d sworn to always be on the lookout for when you were close, guards told to stand down and sleep finally. You were her mercy.

It was easier to be at peace with you, no need for war when you were her safety catch.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to request Sarah characters :)


End file.
